


Apodyopis

by JustJasper



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety, Cole POV, F/F, F/M, Implied Relationships, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Scars, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole sees through to what they have underneath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apodyopis

**Author's Note:**

> Apodyopis - The act of mentally undressing someone
> 
> The relationships tagged in this fic are only vaguely referenced, not explicitly described.

Cullen’s armour comes off, and it gives Cole a lot to think about. He didn’t realise it came off! It’s safe, shields, shelter, seems strange it would come off at all, when it’s cold and frightened underneath. When he wears it Cullen knows what he is, and other people know too. He wonders first if everyone else looks the same underneath. They can’t, though, their stories can’t be the same. Even if they have a scar like the one under Cullen’s ribs, the story isn’t the same, it doesn’t sing about a demon who reminds him that he wants her, but can't ever have her.

The Seeker’s armour hurts her. She has to wear what she doubts on her chest, it has to protect her and it hurts to doubt it. It isn’t a refuge any longer, but the burden bleeds black into everything. Underneath, Cassandra is free, but guilty when she doesn’t want it. The burn hurts long after she can’t feel it, softly red across her arm, hurts because it doesn’t make her happy. She wants to be proud of it, of the way the mother gurgled blood on her blade and screeched until she couldn’t bear it, but it meant nothing, and nothing is worse than something. Something is something.

It hurts because it happened when she loved her. It hurts because she let her go, and then when she loved again she had to let the new love kill the old. Leliana’s clothes hide everything, a tool to help her be a shadow. She has to be a shadow to help. The mercy she wears around her neck is the only one she can give now, a promise to the Warden gone west. Doubt is worse than distance, dark days gone but new days unsure.

The Iron Bull wears pain everywhere, but not all of it is the kind that Cole can touch. A lot of it is physical, the sensation of sharp and burning, but the memories don’t hurt. The ones that do frighten Cole, because the caverns they leave seem so big, but the things that crawl out of them never reach The Iron Bull’s eye. The pain stays inside, turned, tainted, tearing through. The place where his eye used to live used to hurt even when he was proud, until he learned to see without it. It didn’t hurt for a long time, and then it did, a soft hurt not like the scar across his shoulder or the one that still stings with poison that isn’t there. Eyes and fingers, could have used all of them. Touch him with ten fingers, see him with two eyes, like he deserves.

The wolf didn’t want to be worn, but it makes him happy. Secret and subtle, a joke for himself. He is clever when nobody knows it. He says Cole can’t help when the pain is old, but he wants to help, to smooth out his friend who helped him, even if he couldn’t be what Solas needed to see. 

The woman of iron wears hats like him, but they don’t mean the same thing. She wouldn’t want to trade hats with him. Vivienne is angry when her skin hurts her. It shouldn’t hurt her, but sometimes she thinks it’s her skin’s fault and not their words. Stop, shiver, strong as steel, no, cold, iron, push past it. Less is armour, fear is a shield they can’t take from her. Even demons fear when she lets ice into her veins and pushes mercy out. They will get nothing from her, nothing she doesn’t want to give. She has given too much already.

He is a friend, and the hurt is quiet on the inside. She has a name because she means something important to Varric, something that hurts and helps at once. The scar on his hand makes him laugh even though he was angry when he hit the door, blocked in and betrayed, brother on the other side while he stands with the Champion. She made it better, and he tries to make her better even when she becomes lonely again. The pain isn’t always his, taken from other places and woven into untruth that makes it better, makes it worse, but makes it matter when nobody would remember it before. It’s important to remember when it hurts and when it helps.

Josephine wears a lot of things that are proper and pretty, and they feel good. The idea of not having them isn’t nice, makes her sad. She wears her best underneath because she thinks people will know if she doesn’t, that it will mean she isn’t helping. But she helps without them, even when they’re up high in the wind. She remembers when she wore a knife underneath too, when she was young and she wanted to be a story, but the memory hurts now.

He paints his armour on, because being beautiful helps stop the hurt, and he has never been anything else. Dorian knows that whether they believe it or not that it hides the cracks that let the truth through. Form for function, they think they know where he’s weakest when he shows them a soft part. When the morning brings soreness he hides under his sleeves it’s not a hurt that Cole can touch, because it’s wanted and treasured, reminding him that he is safe. The dragon tooth is new, unhidden but treasured like a secret, that hurts when it means one day he will have to leave. 

She doesn’t think he’s a person, but it’s easy because Sera knows how to make someone think they’re not. She doesn’t cry when she remembers that she sometimes believed them, because now she knows she is a little person. She knows she matters even when people don’t think it’s true. She’s strong but doesn’t know that it matters. She has a weapon underneath her clothes and underneath her skin, and it protects her because nobody else has wanted to. She wants them to want to, even if she doesn’t wait for it. 


End file.
